A winner of medals twice against the watch at the National Road Championships, Colm Cassidy has set a blistering time at the Dublin Marathon.
After clocking a 2:50 in his debut last year, Cassidy
(34) did significantly better this time around, doing a 2:36:47.
Another notable time was that of former international
rider, ex-pro, national title winner and Rás Tailteann stage winner Paul
Griffin.
The Kerryman is now aged 46 years and has been running
for some time but he set a personal best yesterday; 2:42:10.
We believe Cassidy’s time is the best in the event by any
former top Irish cyclist, certainly since stickybottle has been around.
Former Dublin Wheelers Ken Norgrove has gone faster in the marathon, but he set his personal best in London rather than Dublin; at 2:33.
Yesterday former UCD Cycling member Cassidy, now running
for Raheny Shamrocks, looked to get his pacing right; going marginally faster
in the second half.
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His time was at 5:59 per mile pace, an incredible
performance for a man who is relatively new to marathon running.
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He finished on the podium in the elite TT in the National
Road Championships twice. In 2013 he was 3rd behind Michael Hutchinson and
David McCann.
And the following year he took silver, behind Hutchinson,
with former world track champion Martyn Irvine in 3rd. On that occasion,
Cassidy lost the title by just four seconds.
Cassidy said last year of his debut run: “A marathon is very similar to a good TT; if you can see Jesus by
the end of it you’ve done it right.”
Yesterday he sounded more on top of his pacing and more
confident about his approach when he spoke to stickybottle.
“The effort was fairly controlled and I managed
to negative split it,” he said of doing the second half just under one minute
faster than the first.
“By the end obviously the effort got
progressively tougher but manageable. It was uncomfortably comfortable, if that
makes sense!
“I was aiming at 2:40 and thinking
2:37:30 would be my absolute best. So I'm very happy to have managed a 2:36.”
Interestingly, Cassidy weighed in at
88-89kg during his bike racing days and he said his weight now that he has
turned to running is the same. Of the 17,680 finishers yesterday, he was 78th;
a great performance.
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